Bitter ye winds in the frosty night Upon the Babe, my God, Piercing the torn and broken thatch; Lament, O heart, for thy God! Bare is the floor, how bare, how bare For the Babe’s sweet mother, my God; Only a stable for mother and Babe; How cruel thy world, my God! Cast out, cast out, by his brother men Unknown the Babe, my God; The ox and the ass alone are there; Soften, O heart, for thy God! Dear little arms and sweet little hands, That stretch for thy mother, my God; Soft baby eyes to the mother’s eyes; Melt, O heart, for thy God! Waxen touches on mother’s heart, Fingers of the Babe, my God; Dear baby lips to her virgin breast, The virgin mother of God. The shepherds have come from the hills to adore The Babe in the manger, my God; Mary and Joseph welcome them there; Worship, O soul, thy God! But I alone may not come near The Babe in the manger, my God; Weep for thy sins, O heart, and plead With Mary the mother of God. May I not come, oh, just to the door, To see the Babe, my God; There will I stop and kneel and adore, And weep for my sins, O God! But Mary smiles, and rising up, In her arms the Babe, my God, She comes to the door and bends her down, With the Babe in her arms, my God! Her sinless arms in my sinful arms Place the Babe, my God; “He has come to take thy sins away;” Break, O heart, for thy God! THE TOYS BY COVENTRY PATMORE My little son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes And mov’d and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, Having my law the seventh time disobey’d, I struck him, and dismiss’d With hard words and unkiss’d, His Mother, who was patient, being dead. Then fearing lest his grief should hinder him sleep I visited his bed, But found him slumbering deep, With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet From his late sobbing wet. And I, with moan, Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; For, on a table drawn beside his head, Fie had put, within his reach, A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone, A piece of glass abraded by the beach, And six or seven shells, A bottle with bluebells And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart. So when that night I pray’d To God, I wept, and said: Ah, when at last we lie with trancéd breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say, “I will be sorry for their childishness.” “IF I WERE DEAD” BY COVENTRY PATMORE